The Screams All Sound The Same
by MckCouGill
Summary: Set 4 months after the end of series 2. Gillian finally self destructs. Caroline/ Gillian friendship. Some Caroline/Kate in later chapters.
1. Chapter 1

**_Though the truth may vary_**,  
**_ This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore _.**

...

The barn. The beginning and end of it all. Where Eddie had bled to death. Where his life ended. Because of her. Where her life, too would end. Because of her. The irony of it all would have made her laugh had it not all been so very sad.

Gillian rocked in the corner, her jean clad knees tucked under her chin, tears running freely down her bruised face. How had it all come to this? What a bloody mess she had made. It was all her fault. Everything was down to her. She despised herself.

Less than twenty-four hours before she'd been stood on her tiny landing, gently talking to her unborn baby, stroking her tiny bump. Desperately apologising. She begged for forgiveness, though she knew she didn't deserve it. She thought of Robbie. Their second child together. The second child that she would deny him the chance of ever knowing.

And then she threw herself down the stairs.

It was Raff who later found her, broken and bruised. She'd knocked herself out, she'd no idea how long she had laid there, all semblance of time had gone. As had the baby. The hospital confirmed it later, but she had known from the instant she came around on the cold floor. That gentle fluttering next to her heart had ceased to exist. She was hollow.

Raff, her Dad and Celia were there at the hospital. They hadn't even known she was pregnant until then. She couldn't lie to them any longer. She couldn't deny what she had done. She couldn't cope with any more guilty secrets weighing on her soul. She couldn't get out of her mind the look on their faces as they recoiled with disgust, that she, their daughter and mother could have deliberately killed her own baby. It was like they didn't know her at all. And they were right. They never had.

Her dad had put her in a taxi that next morning, and then he and Celia took Raff and baby Emily back to Harrogate. They couldn't look at her, let alone speak to her. Gillian didn't blame them. She had nothing left to say anyway. Nothing left inside.

Which bought her to now. Cold and alone in the barn where she murdered her husband.

She carefully pulled the razor blade out of her pocket and set several bottles of pills in front of her. From inside her coat she produced a bottle of vodka. She felt even the most undeserving of souls deserved a drink to die by.

She wondered if she would see Eddie in Hell.

...

"Gillian, it's Caroline... I've left you a few messages now. I do hope you're okay. Well no you're not. Well obviously but anyway... Erm.. Give me a ring back please. Only if you want to. I'm getting a bit worried... Actually I'm just coming off the M62 now, I will be with you soon. You can tell me to bugger off when I get there, I just want to see you... So yeah. I'll see you soon. Bye, bye bye."

Caroline ended the call and cursed the ridiculously cheery bye bye she had ended with. Why had she done that? God. Now was surely not the time for stupidly cheery platitudes.

Halifax lay ahead of her and she put her foot down, feeling unusually anxious about seeing Gillian again. Her Mother and Alan had told her what had happened after she returned home from work, and after biting back the irritation she felt that they had not told her sooner, she had decided that she needed to see Gillian herself.

She understood the shock and disgust that the others were feeling, but she did not share in their sentiments. Gillian's actions had not been merely reckless and hot headed. That would have been entirely normal. Gillian was a law unto herself at the best of times. But this, this was too much. Caroline knew that this was a woman who needed help. She was the only one who knew her secret. She knew what she'd had to endure.

But what surprised her most, was that she wanted to be the one to help her.

The long road to the farm lay ahead and Caroline considered all the horrors that house had seen. She thought of Gillian lying bleeding in every room of the house, beaten and raped. Unimaginable. Not for the first time in the previous months, Caroline longed to give the broken woman a hug.

She pulled up in front of the farmhouse, and with surprising speed ran up to the front door, and knocked hard.

_"No, I never lock up- nowt worth stealing"_

This memory popped in her head, and with a small smile she gently pushed the door open calling Gillian's name. Nothing. She quickly made her way around every room, but it was like the light had gone out. Without Gillian the house felt cold and eerie. Quiet, far too quiet. The landrover was parked out the front and she could see she wasn't out in the fields with the sheep.

"Gillian? Gillian where are you?" Caroline shouted as she walked down away from the house, acutely aware that her voice was tinged with a panic she couldn't seem to shake off.

She pulled her phone out of her pocket to once again try to ring Gillian when for some reason she looked to the barn. The one where Eddie had died.

The door was slightly ajar.

She couldn't explain it, the awful sense of foreboding that came over her. But she knew. Somehow she knew.

Running over she flung the door aside and saw something she would only revisit in her nightmares.

Gillian. Lying on the floor. Deathly pale. Completely still. Blood. Blood everywhere.

"Oh God no, is she breathing? God, Gillian. Shit, pills? No, no, no. Too many pills. Is she dead? Please don't let her be dead. I need you Gillian. You can't be dead, please don't go. GILLIAN..."

...

**_Now wait, wait, wait for me_,**  
**_Please hang around_.**  
**_I'll see you when I fall asleep._**


	2. Chapter 2

_'Cause there's no comfort in the waiting room_  
_ Just nervous pacers bracing for bad news_

_..._

Caroline idly flicked through a magazine, her eyes scanning over the pages. Not taking in a single word. She hadn't seen Gillian since the ambulance had screeched to a halt outside the hospital and she'd been quickly wheeled away. She had been nervously pacing the waiting room for well over an hour, wondering what the hell she should do.

Trying to shake off the fear. The anxiety. The awful feeling of being left behind.

The ambulance journey had seemed endless. Like a dream. She couldn't even hold her hand. She couldn't even offer that small shred of comfort. The paramedic was trying desperately to stop the bleeding to her wrists. So she had shuffled forward and stroked Gillian's hair, gently brushing it away from her eyes. Muttering nonsense. Cheery platitudes again. She didn't have the words.

Exhausted with pacing, she had eventually curled up in a corner of the waiting room, far away from everyone else. All the other anxious families, patiently waiting for news. A television played in another corner of the room, quietly entertaining nobody. The silence was deafening.

She pulled her phone out of her pocket, her breath hitching in her throat when she noticed smears of blood covering the screen. Slowly she wiped it away, with hands that were also covered in blood. How had she not noticed that before now? She thought back to a time not so long ago when she had sat like that. Covered in somebody elses blood. Sodding Judith. It seemed a million years before.

She should ring Alan surely. Raff. Her Mum? They ought to know. Despite everything, they deserved to know. But Caroline couldn't bring herself to make those calls. To explain to them. She couldn't make any sense of it. Gillian was so headstrong, resilient, she could take on the world and never be the victim. And now... this.

She didn't have the words.

She didn't have the answers.

How could she do this? Gillian, why?

"Mrs Elliott?"

The Doctor's greeting startled her, so lost in her thoughts and she turned quickly and faced her.

She looked like Kate. So very like her. Her Kate. Her saviour. The irony was not lost on her.

"Yes, how is she? I mean is she.. is she okay? she asked, desperation barely disguised in her voice.

"We have stabilised her. We've pumped her stomach to get the tablets she had taken out of her system, which we hope has prevented any lasting damage to her internal organs. Time will very much tell. The wounds to her wrists have been stitched after we were able to stop the bleeding. It is likely there will be permanent scarring due to the severity of the incisions. She had lost a significant amount of blood so we gave her a transfusion which has been successful. All in all, she should recover well psychically in time."

Caroline let out a breath she was unaware she had been holding and ran a shaking hand through her hair.

"This was clearly a serious suicide attempt" The doctor continued, bluntly but not unkindly. "It was lucky you found her when you did. From my experience... well clearly this was not merely a cry for help..."

"She really wanted to die." Caroline whispered, understanding the doctors meaning.

"She needs help. We will do everything within our power to see that she gets it." The doctor said, placing her hand over Caroline's own.

Caroline nodded, and only realised that tears were falling down her face when the Doctor handed her a tissue. She took it gratefully and tried to compose herself. She liked this Doctor, this woman who reminded her of Kate. She liked her no-nonsense approach, her determination and her compassion. Most of all she liked her because she had saved her sister's life.

"Is there anyone we can call?" the Doctor asked, breaking Caroline out of her reverie.

"Yes" said Caroline, closing her eyes, "But it's something I need to do. I need to find the words"

...

Everything was too loud. Distorted. Confusing. Unreal. She didn't want to open her eyes.

Her throat hurt, like she had been left without water for too long. Her stomach too. Her wrists. Pain, pain all over. She didn't care.

Her body felt heavy, though not as heavy as the weight upon her heart.

She knew she had failed, and this crushed her. She wanted to be dead, she deserved to be dead. How could she have failed? How weak she was. She wished it wasn't true. She wished she was gone.

She thought of her Dad and Raff. She knew they would be better off without her. They hated her, the look in their eyes had burned into her memory forever.  
She had never wanted to let them down, she needed them too much.

She loved her boy, she loved him with a fierceness she couldn't describe. But she had done wrong by him too many times. Killed his Father. Driven away the Uncle he adored. Now she had taken away his little brother or sister. He wouldn't want to know her. He didn't need her. He had baby Emily and he had Ellie. A family all of his own now. His Grandfather and Celia, and Caroline too.

Caroline. She would have been told about the baby. What she had done. Somehow the thought of this woman who had come to mean so much, turning against her was too much to bear, and a single tear fell from her closed eyes.

"Gillian? Gillian are you awake?"

A soft voice, followed by an even softer touch as fingers gently brushed away that solitary tear.

With every ounce of strength she had left, Gillian forced herself to open her eyes.

She was there.

Caroline.

...

_Amongst the vending machines and year-old magazines in a place where we only say goodbye_  
_ It stung like a violent wind that our memories depend on a faulty camera in our minds_  
_ But I knew that you were a truth I would rather lose than to have never lain beside at all_  
_ And I looked around at all the eyes on the ground as the TV entertained itself_


End file.
